Customer Care: Making People Feel Important

If you’ve been in business for a couple of years, you probably have a good understanding of the old idea that the customer is always right. Of course, this isn’t to say that the people you serve are geniuses and that they are constantly correct where you are wrong. Instead, it’s simply suggesting that you ignore your own feelings when talking to people like this, treating their word as if it is the only thing important to you. Understanding how far this should go within your own company will be a challenge. To help you out, this post will be exploring some of the key areas you will have to consider, along with the help you can get along the way.

Customer’s Expectations: The people spending money with you are those you want to please the most with this sort of work. Having been treated well by loads of other companies, the level of expectations most people have for the businesses serving them will be very high. Meeting these requirements can be hard for some companies. You will need to work tirelessly to handle the finer elements of this job. Thankfully, there are loads of tools out there to help you with this, and a lot of them are completely free.

The Areas To Work On: There are quite a few different areas which need to be worked on before you can consider yourself a customer-focused business. It will be easy to tell how much effort you put into this sort of work, with the results impacting everyone using your business. Below, you can find some of the examples you will have to keep at the front of your mind.

Customer Service: When a customer needs help with an order, a query, or any other kind of service, it’s important that your business handle it as swiftly and professionally as possible. A large part of this will be the training being taken by yourself and the employees doing this job. At can take many years to be able to handle this part of your business, and a lot of people will find themselves struggling throughout.

Customer Health & Safety: Along with feeling like their queries are important to you, it’s also critical that customers feel safe when they are spending in your stores. If you have someone slip and fall on ice outside your doors, they may have the chance to take you to court. Avoiding this sort of issue is a priority, with a lot of modern customers going out of their way to get something out of normal accidents like this.

Customer Complaints & Suggestions: Of course, sometimes, a customer won’t be trying to get in contact with you because they’d like to ask a question. If an order goes wrong, it can be understandable if a customer wants to have some harsh words with you. While this may be hurtful and hard to hear, the advice they give could be very useful to you. If they see that you’ve put their complaint into action and solved the issue, they will be much happier to spend with you going into the future.

Accessibility: Companies have to work hard to make sure that everyone has access to them, nowadays. Ramps, lifts, and other tools are all perfect when you’re working towards getting something like this done. People will be unhappy if they are unable to shop with you because of a disability they are suffering with, and you have the power to solve an issue like this before it ever comes.

Why Is It Important? When you’re looking at all of the work before you in a field like this, it can be hard to see the importance of what you’re doing. In reality, though, without this sort of effort, it will be obvious to customers that you haven’t spent any time thinking about them. For those most loyal, it could be frustrating to see your business go for so long without any change. Thankfully, solving this shouldn’t be too much work, and a lot of people have a good idea of what will need to be done based on their own expectations of businesses.

Hopefully, with this post in mind, it should start to get a lot easier to repair your relationships with customers which are unhappy with your business. It’s important to keep your customers at the forefront of your mind when you’re running any sort of company. Without these people, you wouldn’t be able to earn, and this makes it very important to keep up with them.

You may like

ILMAP leads the way in quality for all types of water management hardware

For over 50 years ILMAP have been developing and refining the technology and materials used in the installation and management of water management. Using the wealth of experience gained through all those years in the field, they have been able to build a wide range of products that meet a huge range of specifications.

Specialising in nozzles, traps, collectors and other accessories, their products have a wide range of application across the production of drinking water and demineralized water, treatment of waste water and filtration and water treatment for the pharmaceutical and food industry. With so much experience and innovation ILMAP is one of the leading filter nozzle manufacturers in the world.

Filter nozzles for water treatment for industrial and residential uses

Across industrial applications, the products cater for a variety of industries, including electricity power generation, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the food and beverage industry and the agricultural sector. But is also developed for domestic uses, such as in home swimming pools, irrigation and water softening filters.

Application can range from industrial water treatment and waste water treatment to water purification and ion exchange systems, all with the highest quality and safety at the forefront of development.

Parts are produced by state of the art modern injection moulding machines, known for reliability and high standards of finish. Customers are always at the forefront and ILMAP prides itself on offering the best in customer service. With more than 700 m2 of warehouse, supply is assured and delivery procedures set to fixed lead times, so work can be planned accordingly.

It is not only nozzles, ILMAP also produces resin traps that guarantee effective protection against material losses in your system, in materials like plastic and stainless less as required.

Quality products in the best materials for the job

ILMAP has put a huge amount of effort in the research and development of their products over the years combining experience with the latest materials and efficient production processes.

The focus has been to ensure the best quality products, with dimensional accuracy and repeatability in the production time and design. Also a key focus is compliance with standard measurement and the control of the raw materials in production. So confident in their passion for good practices, they will open their factory for both client inspections and for certification bodies to review the procedures and controls.

With a fully functional test laboratory to allow testing of the pressure drop of the nozzles and the correct certifications available, it is easy to have confidence in the products.

Independently certified for guaranteed quality

All products are manufactured with top quality materials purchased from leading suppliers. Polypropylene, PVDF, ABS and masterbatches used are certified by the manufacturer for contact with drinking water according to the main current world regulations.

Even once the raw materials have entered production, and so the raw material certification becomes invalid, the final products are also audited at authorised laboratories gaining the following certifications:

ITALY – D.M. 174 del 06.05.2004

FRANCE – ACS Certification

UNITED KINGDOM – WRAS – BS 6920 Approved Material

“Suitability of non-metallic products for use in contact with water intended for human
consumption with regard to their effect on the quality of the water”

EUROPE – Food Safety Regulation – (EU) 10/2011 & 1935/2004 EC

“materials and articles intended to come into contact with food”.

All offering reassurance for the purchaser in the standards that are applied, especially where the products come into contact with potable water. It is very important for any company involved in the purification or management of water to ensure that their suppliers follow these standards, and ILMAP are well prepared to meet them as part of their core principles of manufacturing.

For more than half a century McDonald’s has been a recognisable brand in just about every country you can think of. According to its website, the chain has restaurants in 101 countries. Its 36,000+ restaurants serve around 69 million fast food fans every single day.

With stats like this, and McDonald’s easily recognised by just about anybody, the recent EU trade mark ruling has surprised many. McDonald’s has just lost its EU trade mark for the Big Mac in what is dubbed a ‘David and Goliath’ battle with a small Irish chain.

How did McDonald’s lose its Big Mac EU trade mark?

When Supermac’s took on the might of McDonald’s in a trade mark battle, it was assumed by many that the smaller chain would lose. While Supermac’s may not be a household name in the UK, however, it’s much loved in Ireland.

Now the largest fast food chain in Ireland, Supermac’s began in 1978 and today has more than 110 franchises and restaurants all over the country. Founded by Pat and Una McDonagh, it was named after his nickname, ‘Supermac’ when he played Gaelic football. They also own Claddagh Irish Pubs & Restaurants through Supermac’s Ireland Ltd.

The EU trade mark battle

Supermac’s has been locked into an ongoing fight with McDonald’s since 2015, when it announced plans to expand into the EU and UK. McDonald’s initially objected to Supermac’s registering a number of trade marks for products and its name. They argued that the names McDonald’s and Supermac’s are too similar and would cause customer confusion. McDonald’s further argued that the Supermac’s brand name is visually too similar to their trade mark.

Supermac’s responded by pointing out that they had happily traded at the same time as McDonald’s in Ireland for more than 30 years with no signs of confusion on the part of customers.

Initially, McDonald’s won a part-victory when the European Union’s Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) decided that Supermac can continue to trade in its own name within the EU. However, it rejected the Irish company’s trade mark applications for various products and menu items, saying that consumers might “be confused as to whether Supermac’s is a new version of McDonald’s”, given that there are near-identical products sold by both restaurant chains.

Revoking McDonald’s EU trade marks

In January 2019, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) made a decision that allows victory to Supermac’s after all. By ruling that EU trade marks owned by McDonald’s are to be revoked, Supermac’s is clear to expand into the rest of the EU.

The landmark decision went into effect immediately, on the basis that the EUIPO rules that McDonald’s had failed to prove “genuine use” of its Big Mac trade mark as a restaurant or menu item.

Unsurprisingly delighted, Pat McDonagh says: “Never mind David versus Goliath, this unique landmark decision is akin to the Connacht team winning against the All Blacks. This is the end of the McBully. Just because McDonald’s has deep pockets and we are relatively small in context, doesn’t mean we weren’t going to fight our corner.”

How the fight played out

In April 2017, Supermac’s requested that the EUIPO cancel McDonald’s trade mark for ‘Big Mac’ and ‘Mc’. The chain also accused the US giant of “trade mark bullying” by registering and gaining protection for names, but not actually using them to stamp down any potential competition.

On its part, McDonald’s legal representatives provided signed affidavits from high level executives and showed examples of packaging and adverts to demonstrate it serves Big Macs right across the EU, and therefore deserves to retain the EU trade mark for that specific product.

However, the EUIPO deemed this “insufficient” in its judgement. As trade marks are registered at national level and at the EU, McDonald’s does not lose all of its protection for the Big Mac. They also have the right to appeal, which we suspect they are likely to do.

Supermac’s forges ahead

For Supermac’s, all eyes are on the future. Mr McDonagh says: “This now opens the door for the decision to be made by the European trade mark office to allow us to use our SuperMac as a burger across Europe.”

A representative from EIP, an intellectual property law firm, Carissa-Kendall Windless, says: “This decision is a significant one, partly because it serves as a warning to multinational companies that they can no longer simply file trade mark applications without a genuine intention to use it”.

It’s inevitable that McDonald’s will exercise its right to appeal, and it will be interesting to see how this David and Goliath battle goes on this year.

About Dawn Ellmore Employment

Dawn Ellmore Employment was incorporated in 1995 and is a market leader in intellectual property and legal recruitment.

Dutch giant Heineken has made a strong statement regarding its connection with football with a trade mark application to be named the “Official Beer of Soccer” in the United States.

Heineken is the partner of Major League Soccer (MLS), the professional football league in the US. The recent trade mark application to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is particularly relevant given the pending arrival of the World Cup in the US in 2026.

Trade mark application gives indication of brand’s plans

The beer company is already positioned as the “Official Beer” of the league throughout its marketing collateral. However, the application shows that it wants to build on this and strive for full ownership of football in the US.

In 2018, Heineken signed a new partnership deal with MLS that goes through to 2022/23, clearly showing long-term ambition. Felix Palau is the Senior Vice-President of Marketing for Heineken. He says: “Since working with MLS, we’ve seen a huge spike in our pull with soccer fans and supporters, and we hope to continue this trend for the short and long term.”

And with the latest trade mark application, we can surmise that soccer in the US is working well for the long-standing European brand.

What does the trade mark application show?

The trade mark was filed at the USPTO on 4 January 2019. It’s likely that the application shows Heineken’s ambitions to block any potential rivals from linking with the World Cup in 2026, by firmly establishing itself as synonymous with US soccer. It’s certainly likely that there will be brands looking to leverage the same kind of connection during the World Cup.

For example, before 2018’s World Cup, US brand Budweiser usurped Carlsberg as the “official beer” of the English national football team. This was the biggest partnership deal in the Football Association’s history at the time. Not only did Budweiser sponsor the team, which did spectacularly well and revitalised UK interest in international football, it also took over the beer taps at Wembley Stadium. Budweiser also partners the FA Cup and helped to boost the increasing popularity of the brand in the UK. It’s highly likely that Budweiser will want to continue its links with the sport in its home country in the 2026 World Cup.

How popular would the move be?

If European based Heineken is granted the trade mark, it will be interesting to see how popular this would be with US fans. Following the news of the trade mark application, sports journalist Richard Gillis says: “I must’ve been out of the room when football fans were consulted on this. I’m assuming it’s legally binding and we’re all now required to drink Heineken on every football related occasions, with heavy fines for those caught drinking Bud or Carling.

“It’s a welcome trend, and a real timesaver on the part of sponsors and their agencies. No need for ideas or strategy: just declare yourself ‘Official Partner’ and wait for the love and affection of the football family to flow toward the brand. A masterstroke.”

While clearly a sarcastic response, this could indicate that Heineken’s move may not be embraced with open arms in the US.

How beer brands help grow sport

Heineken is no stranger to major sporting partnerships. Global partners of the brand include Formula 1, the UEFA Champions League, the Rugby World Cup and Formula E. In popular culture, the brand is also linked with major franchises, including Daniel Craig’s James Bond.

And it’s a two-way relationship, with MLS benefiting from the marketing money ploughed int the sport by partners like Heineken. The Managing Director and President of MLS Business Ventures, Gary Stevenson, says: “If we are good at solving the brands’ problems, then they will spend more money. That way we can tap into our partners’ marketing dollars and they can make our sport, league and players come alive. We can never have that amount of marketing dollars to do something similar. We’re reliant on them to build the sport.”

The USPTO takes at least six months to process trade mark applications, and Heineken is currently waiting to see whether it has been successful. As with so many major trade mark and patent applications, time will tell whether Heineken will be able to call itself the “Official Beer of Soccer”. With its background of strong support for the sport in the US since 2014, it would seem they have a strong chance.

About Dawn Ellmore Employment

Dawn Ellmore Employment was incorporated in 1995 and is a market leader in intellectual property and legal recruitment.